


Love, Dramatically

by semele



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 19:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13910967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/pseuds/semele
Summary: Once the first cold winds reach Arkadia, Bellamy has no time to wonder about love.To be fair, it’s not like he was spending a lot of time thinking about it before. Bellamy isn’t the kind of person to indulge in this sort of fancy. His life has always been all clear lines and short, sharp sentences that could cut you like a knife, repeated over and over until they were etched in his brain. Be quiet. Love your family. Don’t stand out.(Set somewhere after s2, but has a very loose relationship with canon. Also, there is a little bit of sex, but it's mentioned so briefly I thought it didn't warrant a higher rating. You have been warned.)





	Love, Dramatically

**Author's Note:**

> File under: I haven't written in a few months, this felt like tremendously hard work, but I am still kind of pleased with myself.

Once the first cold winds reach Arkadia, Bellamy has no time to wonder about love.

To be fair, it’s not like he was spending a lot of time thinking about it before. Bellamy isn’t the kind of person to indulge in this sort of fancy. His life has always been all clear lines and short, sharp sentences that could cut you like a knife, repeated over and over until they were etched in his brain. Be quiet. Love your family. Don’t stand out.

Back on the Ark, whatever thinking got done between those lines happened in secret; the only truly private thing he was allowed between crowded quarters and loud gyms. At times, those thoughts were so hidden even he forgot that he had them; and then sometimes, he would get scared of how overwhelming they got, and how likely they were to distract him into some tragic misstep. That was something he simply couldn’t allow to happen. They were just idle thoughts, something to occupy and distract him, and not worth much in the grand scheme of things.

Definitely not worth getting caught.

So now that winter is fast approaching, and all his silly, idle thoughts decide to keep resurfacing, Bellamy can’t help but be a bit annoyed with himself. This isn’t the time to think about love, even if it starts dawning on him that, for the first time in his life, he could, in theory, actually afford to fall in love. It’s not going to happen, of course, because he has way too much on his plate to get distracted by frivolous things, and yet here it is: the thought that he could gets stuck in his head, and shapes itself around him whenever his mind is idle. It makes as much sense as any brain bug, he thinks furiously as he puts all his muscle into repairing the Ark wreckage and chopping down trees for fuel. Why would he want something he doesn’t even understand?

***

Raven rooming with him is almost an afterthought; or at least he pretends that it doesn’t make his heart beat faster, or fill him with a silly sort of giddiness he’s pretty sure he is too old for. In many ways, them rooming together was the obvious choice. He is strong enough to lift her if something happens to her brace, and she is strong enough to stop him before he does something stupid. At least that’s what Monty tells them both when he finds out that they teamed up for the season, and Bellamy doesn’t exactly disagree. 

The first few days are awkward, with their mismatched cots pushed head to head against one wall, and strange tools getting in the way much more than expected. They did this for practical reasons, of course, but that doesn’t negate the sheer, calming joy Bellamy feels every time he returns from his shift only to find another person making his room alive with the bustle of daily life.

So maybe this is what love is, he thinks as he holds bits of metal so Raven can screw them together and make them a shelf. It’s companionship, it’s ease and it’s calm; something steady in a wobbly world that surrounds him despite solid ground under his feet. At this point, you see, Bellamy is pretty set on the idea that surely he must love Raven Reyes, so much for not having time for frivolous things. He’s just stuck on trying to understand what it means.

***

About two cold nights into the fall, Bellamy and Raven unceremoniously shove their two mismatched cots together, deciding that it’s better to be awkward than frozen.

And awkwardness abounds, with every shred of privacy now surrendered for the sake of bodily needs. They try to be coy at first, but even Bellamy can’t bring himself to be prudish when he has to break a thin layer of ice in the jug if he wants his drink of water in the morning. Raven keeps promising to fix the heating in the old Ark units, but there is only so much she can do when the Council reverts the resources to something else, leaving her with five screwdrivers and sheer stubbornness. She is visibly angry, too; sharp and hissy, and determined to fix the fucking thing even if it’s the last thing she does. Until she can do just that, they cling to each other every night, and it’s less exciting than anyone might imagine. With layers upon layers of clothing, Bellamy and Raven are just blobs of human heat, and most of the time, he can’t even tell which body parts he’s touching in the dark.

But he learns to need her during those long, cold nights; learns to need the way he was never allowed to need another person. When he gets up in the morning, it feels like acute loss; like something dull and hollow, forcing him to keep his hands idle and his eyes closed. Raven is now, in a very literal sense, essential to his survival, and he can tell she feels the same about him, given how she lingers sometimes, even when they aren’t in bed. A month in, it’s like touching him is her painkiller of choice, and he doesn’t even care how ridiculous it might look; Raven diving into a tight hug in the middle of the dining hall after an upsetting morning shift, or seeking to grab his hand while Abby prods at her leg. They become necessary for each other, and Bellamy can’t really figure out if he’d come to need her this much if he didn’t love her, but, after a few weeks, he isn’t so sure that he cares. 

Well, okay. On some level, he does. But whether the answer is yes or no, he knows it still wouldn’t make him hold her any less tight.

***

Fundamentally, Bellamy knows from silly books that he snuck into his life once upon a time that there are two things that count in love; there is need, and then there is want. What he also knows: he’s not so great at the latter.

There is a part of him that still remembers Raven’s bare skin pressing against his, especially when he catches a glimpse of her face illuminated by the campfires. It’s a rare slip of beauty in his otherwise gloomy world, so he cherishes those moments as they come, trying not to overanalyze them too much. 

But then, as snow falls, there isn’t really much to do but overanalyze, and Bellamy discovers idleness for the first time in his life. As weather gets worse and worse, and Arkes finally start following Lincoln’s advice to stop fighting it, he gets trapped in a room with Raven for days at the time, burrowed under blankets, eating at their dwindling supply of food, and slowly realizing that there is literally nothing to do but talking.

It doesn’t go so well at first, mostly because they’re both too used to keeping to themselves. As it turns out, it’s easier to let someone see you have the runs from spoiled food you were both too hungry to let go of than to take a deep breath and admit to simple truths. I like you here. You make it better. Please don’t move out when it gets warm. Bellamy can justify indulging in Raven’s company when it’s something he needs for his very survival, but it’s a lot harder to ask for it just because he wants it so desperately it makes him choke.

Like in some bad novel, the tension snaps one snowy day, and they sink into each other like greedy little things, maybe hoping that sex, finally, will make things less awkward than weeks upon charged weeks of pseudo-platonic roommating.

Predictably, it doesn’t work that way.

There is nowhere to run afterwards, and just for a second, Raven looks like a trapped animal. That’s the first time they finally talk for real, and it’s like pulling teeth; a painful back-and-forth, with each of them scared enough to retreat at any sign of danger.

In the end, it’s Bellamy who cracks first, and whispers something silly; something about need, and closeness, and please, please, stay with me. I need you to touch me again. You see, even at this point, when he’s supposed to be smarter than all this crap, it still feels like to weak a justification to just say “I want”.

***

They sleep together a few more times before spring comes, and Bellamy would like to say that there is a definite learning curve there, from mediocre to decent to great, but sadly that’s not the case. It’s more of a fight with the elements; with how much skin they dare to expose at any given time, and just how well their sore muscles and joints are even willing to move at the end of the day. One glorious time, Bellamy braves actually going up to his knees in bed in search of the right angle, but then Raven looks up from under him, and bursts out laughing when she sees a blanket still artfully draped over his shoulders like a cape.

In the end, they are giggling too hard to even finish that round, and it’s the most beautiful thing Bellamy has ever seen; Raven’s eyes squeezed shut with laughter, and her cheeks suddenly rounding up a little as she grins at him from below, all light and soft and carefree. Looking at her like this, it dawns on him that maybe understanding what love is is a lot simpler than he is making it out to be.

Raven wears a very similar smile on the first warm day of the new year. Bellamy catches her as she steps out of her workshop in the afternoon, her face turning to make sure she catches all the best rays of spring sunlight, and for a second, he is so stunned he finally knows exactly what to say.

“I want you to stay,” he murmurs as he draws her close, one hand coming up to cradle her head against his shoulder. Raven lets him have a quick hug, but then she looks up.

“I thought we already agreed that I’m staying?” she says, raising her eyebrows in puzzlement.

“Yes, but I never said it. I never said that I want you to.”

There is a moment of silence there; a moment when he knows that she knows, that she cracked this whole “love” thing a long time ago, and she’s been waiting for him to say the right thing. 

Or maybe not. Maybe this is just his melodramatic imagination putting words and stories right into Raven’s head, when she is more touch, and heart, and hands that rest flat on his chest for a moment, only to close on his jacket, and pull him in for a kiss, even though she’s still smiling at him fondly.

“Weirdo.”


End file.
